I'm Not Scared of Dying Alone. I'm Scared of Marrying a Loser.
“The right guy is an illusion. Start living your lives.” Samantha Jones, Sex & The City.
It’s no secret that the current dating scene is hell. We waste months lurching from one problematic situationship to the next, communication a scarce commodity and ghosting is the new break up. We cry over guys who have skids in their boxers and bunk the barriers at the tube, tweaking out because the only time you hear from him is that 10pm “u up?” text. So when one comes along that picks up the dinner bill with no fuss, automatically gives you the booth seat and holds the door open, the scarcity mindset kicks in, and you cling on for dear life. The bar is in hell.
But as the honeymoon phase wears off, you can’t help but start to notice things. A man I’d once cherished for his ability to recognise his emotions (a bare minimum) and proactively planning dates, I couldn’t ignore the small signs that maybe, just maybe this wasn’t the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Saying no when people asked to bum a cigarette, the way his google reviews were littered with 1 star reviews, the harbinger of doom for staff who forgot to do check backs. Where I once could overlook these things in the beginning, taking them as one-offs before realizing they were just his embedded behaviours, I chose to overlook these things because the rest of him was just perfect. But as he furiously typed yet another damning essayistic character assassination of the local Subway, I had this familiar sinking feeling I tried so hard to squash constantly resurfacing, and eventually I couldn’t ignore for any longer: this man is a loser.
I remember being at a cross roads about breaking up, ultimately it was six months of anguish, of debating, of writing pros and cons lists, making SWOT diagrams, breaking up and getting back together 5 times before it was final. Desperately clinging on to the fact that he was one of the good ones, I was ignoring that niggling feeling that he wasn’t right for me. I felt this pressure to stick with him; he was the man who managed to bag a baddie like me, which made it harder to admit to myself, I didn’t actually want to be there.
My pride got in the way. I’d thrown away a pretty successful roster, ghosted my star players, deactivated my overwhelmingly validating Hinge account, for a man who got angry with me when I offered to swap seats with a family so they could sit together, whose kitchen sink was permanently blocked and stacked with dishes. He was meant to be the exception, the one who cut through all the noise and beat the endless options, the one who was meant to give me my fairytale ending. And instead he let me down more than anyone I’d ever dated.
Many of us women fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy. The inability to leave even when the relationship is no longer serving them (and in most cases, staying for months or years too long), simply because they’ve invested so much in this man. Whether that’s time, money, emotional labour or even “we’ve been through so much together”, letting go is scary and unfamiliar. A big fear is building up a man, just for another woman to enjoy the new and improved version.
I admit, I’ve been a fixer upper. In all my long-term relationships, I’ve picked men who I believed I could shape to be worthy of me, with only a few fixings. I took my ex of 6 years from wearing to H&M graphic tees and ill-fitting jeans to Urban Outfitters’ finest. When we broke up, he thanked me quite earnestly for “teaching me how to be cool.” I wouldn’t do that again though. Pinterest exists.
For a long time, I believed I was only worthy of mediocre men. Men who, by all accounts, were sweet and friendly with stable jobs. But maybe there’d be things I compromised on, like a unique sense of style, inherent kindness or being proactive to my needs (and spoiling me, a little). Things that I’ve realized are important to me as I keep discovering myself through dating. I picked the baseline, safe option, because they seemed unlikely to cheat or be massively insecure (and I am always wrong about that last part). I was willing to eschew dress sense, because that could be easily fixed with a few trips to Uniqlo, and surely they could start to anticipate my needs after a few fights and we got to know each other more?
One of the rare things my recent ex and I agreed on, was the notion that people can’t change whilst in relationships, only after. Once the dust and debris has settled and you start to rebuild, you take what you’ve learnt and onto the next. This is where I believe so many women get stuck: they can’t bear the thought of a new woman not experiencing the mistakes you bled for.
There’s an awful sense of injustice when you see your ex finally doing all the things you begged him to do: whether it’s getting rid of that questionable facial hair or ditching the skin tight flannels. Now the next woman will never get the ick the same way you used to, but you swallowed it down because you saw his potential. This is how mediocre men get away with murder; hot, confident women giving a mid guy a chance, because I can fix him. But what comes out at the end? He gets a character reference for bagging a baddie like you, meanwhile the entire relationship you’ve been defending your decision to date him: he’s really sweet, he’s one of the good ones. Or my excuse for my last trip up? I was mentally ill and manipulated into monogamy.
Early in our relationship, I’d floated the idea of attending a kink party together, something I’ve always been interested in and felt that I’d finally met a partner I felt comfortable enough to explore this environment with together. He got quite upset and shut down the idea very quickly, giving me the cold shoulder for the rest of the evening. I never brought it up again, and spent a a lot of our relationship pondering if this was someone I was going to be with forever, sexual compatibility being a deal breaker for me. Eventually we broke up. Now he frequents that scene, he made a point to tell me about all his explorations the last time we did one of our soul-sucking break-up post-mortems. I flipped my absolute shit. It was the last time I met up with him. There’s a reason he’s blocked on all socials - I am simply better, not knowing what he’s up to, and he does not deserve access to my life.
I wonder about the women who’ve felt this way, and decided to keep going down the road and eventually get married. Maybe even bear their children. It’s my worst nightmare.
My very good friend Emma is in her forties. She has an accomplished career with very many well-deserved accolades, she is full of energy and the life of the party. She makes me less afraid of getting older: she is who I want to be when I grow up.
She commands the attention of a room, brings people together effortlessly, everyone always wants to listen to what she has to say. I met her in the midst of her divorce, where she’s now rediscovering who she is after decades of marriage to a man, who by all accounts, was not even a drop in the ocean compared to her force of nature. When I told her my idea for this article, she laughed, yeah, that’s what I did.
Staring into the ghost of my future whilst we were smoking cigarettes outside of a pub, I asked her, what was it about him? How did that even happen? Trying to disguise my biggest fears into casual questions. She explained to me that he balanced her out, the way she mellowed out after years of being a ferocious party girl, that he was what she needed at a time where she was moving to the next step of adulthood. She was in her thirties and realizing, she could not take ecstasy every weekend forever. And he was there.
And this isn’t to say that they didn’t have good times together, they did indeed have years of happiness and produced one of the coolest kids I’ve ever have the privilege to know. But she was the catalyst behind the curious adventures of their shared relationship, the fire and fuel behind the fun. After over a decade of opening doors, exciting opportunities and endlessly trying to get him on her level, she’s now finding herself again. And watching her embrace the free-spirited woman that was dormant for decades, is a beautiful experience.
I’ve been sold on the lie that opposites attract, and wasted years of my dating life seeking out stable, calm and unimpressive men. Men whose wildest experiences are a regular Tuesday for me, men who ride my coattails in the hope that by dating me, they become more exciting and interesting to be around. And I am done with this. I am done with letting a loser steal my sparkle, with setting up the punchline of a joke so they can get the credit for being funny, with having to defend my decision to date him.
As I slowly approach my first year of relationship sobriety, there’s a peace that I have with knowing what I’m looking for. That I will no longer settle for the first guy who hits the bare minimum of what a partner should be. I’ve started searching for chemistry over compatibility, someone who excites and intrigues me, someone who is inherently kind and empathetic, someone who encourages my wildest ambitions instead of reigning me in. Someone who complements me, rather than mellows me.
Having standards sucks. There are plenty of fish in the sea, but we live in a climate where most are riddled with microplastics, emotional immaturity and insecurity. My dating pool gets narrower as I learn to read the red flags instead of being willingly colour blind, to walk away the moment something doesn’t sit right with me. I can spot the early warning signs if he’ll drag me down or lift me up, and run away so fast I probably set a new PB everytime.
Maybe I’ll die alone, maybe I’ll die surrounded by my grandkids, maybe I’ll die with my life long partner, having lived the DINK lifestyle - who knows what the future holds. Your partner is the only family you get to choose. Why choose a loser?
